Tips on Complying with the Updated Standards for Commercial Support

Getting Buy-In from Committee Members

Questions remain, including sticky wickets like how to get buy-in from the committee members, who are already asked to do a lot, and now are being asked to do even more. Last-minute faculty substitutions also are an ongoing cause for concern. Among the suggestions made during a breakout session, were to insist that the first slide be on disclosure, to have the substitute fill out a disclosure form on site, or to do a verbal disclosure. But that only covers disclosure, not resolving any potential conflicts of interest.

Panelist David Baldwin, manager, accreditation services, ACCME, suggested that, if you have a pool of faculty you draw from regularly, you could educate them on the rules ahead of time. Another participant said that step-in speakers need to know the rules, too, and one of them is that the content is approved ahead of time — so it's not OK to deviate from the prepared materials.

Element 4.2 of the updated Standards, which says that “Live (staffed exhibits, presentations) or enduring (printed or electronic advertisements) promotional activities must be kept separate from CME,” also caused angst at the session. “Does this mean we can't have ads in our program book? They are a huge revenue source for us,” said one participant. Baldwin indicated that if the program book just contains the logistics of the meeting, ads are allowable, but “anything with educational content cannot have ads.”